Russo and Steele auction

[PeteLeathersac]

[ QUOTE ]
A lot of people keep calling it shill bidding, but if the auction house divulges that it will place a bid on behalf of the seller then I don't think that is considered a shill bid. If a private individual has his buddy placing a bid on his car, then that is considered a shill bid unless of course his buddy really wants to buy it. I'm not trying to defend anyone here, but it's in plain writing that this is what most reserve auctions do so it should be no surprise.

[/ QUOTE ]

Shill bidding was a law created to protect buyers and your words seem to express concerns only for what the sellers and auction house know of and understand?.
If they're both aware of, and agree to the trickery between themselves yet hide behind words crafted to escape the real meanings and understanding of those spending the money, that certainly doesn't make anything right...or fair!.

~ Pete

[rubbinisracing]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A lot of people keep calling it shill bidding, but if the auction house divulges that it will place a bid on behalf of the seller then I don't think that is considered a shill bid. If a private individual has his buddy placing a bid on his car, then that is considered a shill bid unless of course his buddy really wants to buy it. I'm not trying to defend anyone here, but it's in plain writing that this is what most reserve auctions do so it should be no surprise.

[/ QUOTE ]

Shill bidding was a law created to protect buyers and your words seem to express concerns only for what the sellers and auction house know of and understand?.
If they're both aware of, and agree to the trickery between themselves yet hide behind words crafted to escape the real meanings and understanding of those spending the money, that certainly doesn't make anything right...or fair!.

~ Pete

[/ QUOTE ]

BINGO!

Ladies and Gentlemen we have a winner!

[rubbinisracing]

I received a phone call today that I had been expecting...but the conversation was not what I expected.

Rick Prince the owner of Texas Muscle Cars called me to discuss the email I had sent him (the one I mentioned in my previous post) with a link to the Racin Boys interview. Rick wanted to explain his side of the story about his purchase of the Shelby at the recent R&S auction. Rick told me that the car was never presented at auction as benifiting disabled children, no mention of the suposed back story of its 28 year history and the suposed reason for the sale. The title for the car was in the complaintants name and not the suposed father of the diabled children. The car was originally Lime Gold and had been repainted Candyapple Red which also was not revealed in the auction copy. He is not an expert on Fords and only learned of the color change when he got it home even though the vin# would have told him the original color if he knew how to decode it. He bought it because he thought it was a good deal on a Shelby GT500KR and figured the auto tranny was hurting its value and the reason it sold for 100K plus 8%. With this new information I'd say it was well bought but far from a steal. Rick went on to say that the guy telling the story had really upset him with his comment that Rick had taken money away from these kids. Rick has been very giving in regards to charitable causes and those comments troubled Rick greatly. He didn't answer the phone calls or call the guy as he originally said he would because R&S said they would handle it. After Rick finishes telling me all this I let him know that I nor most of the guys here think he did anything wrong and we stated so in our post and that the uproar was about the post he and Rachael/Sharon had made on the sYc where she was found out to be a liar. Rick tells me that he didn't make any post and hasn't visited this site in a while, but one of the guys who works in the shop does visit a lot and talks about this site from time to time. I ask Rick to got to his computer and read the thread about Russo & Steele and see what I'm talking about and then call me back. 90 minutes later Rick calls me and is quite bothered about the post that were made in the thread by Rachael/Sharon and supposedly himself. He says he confronted Rachael (who I have never met) who turns out is his daughter and works with him. He also confronts the guy in his shop and both deny any knowledge of the post. He then confronts Rachael a second time and she tearfully admits making all the post even the ones from him in an effort to support her Dad who had felt terrible about the way he had been portrayed in the Racin Boys interview. I admire his daughters courage but don't condone her methods and neither does Rick. I felt it best that I make this post so the truth and Ricks side of the Shelby purchase could be told.

Moderators, I ask that this post stay up till Monday for all to see and then it and the posts by Rachael be deleted from the thread.

[Charley Lillard]

Thanks for the update.

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

Good info, clears the air a bit.

(BTW, not to hijack, but what color is Lime Gold??)

[ANDY M]

Marlin, think Citrus green but with a little more "pop", like a metal flake paint.

[Mr70]

I think it resembles 1970 color #45 Green Mist metallic more then Citrus Green.

[Stefano]

Just to clarify,the VIN will not provide the Color by itself, unless you use it to reference the registry. I'm sure you meant the door tag/body plate, located on the inside of the drivers door, which has the VIN and other pertinent build information on it. These tags are accurately reproduced by Kevin Marty.

Interesting post Howard.

ps I watched a '68 GT500 Convertible, Same Color Change Combo sell at R&S for less than $90k.

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

Thx

[tirebird]

Well, this was far more interesting reading than this morning's paper. Took a lot longer too. I have a few comments that are probably not of interest to most of the readers here. I've never bought or sold a car at auction, never attended an auction, and never watched more than a few seconds of an auction on television. In my opinion, if the auction houses want to protect their supposedly good name, then they have to eliminate this shill business. Yes, by the letter of the law, it's legal. But, by the spirit of fairness and transparency, it's sleezy. There's no better word for it. If a car has a 100k reserve and real buyers only bid 80k, then that's the real value from the buyers willing to purchase the car. Artificially inflating the value up to a possibly outdated price point, doesn't do the hobby or the real buyers any good. But, I'm probably really naive here, it's really about making money for the auction houses.

Out here in California, there are a lot of foreclosed homes being auctioned by banks. I'm sure the same situation exists where you live too. I was visiting friends recently and happened upon one of those auctions at the steps of a local courthouse. This one home, that originally sold for 750K was on the block for a minimum bid of 355k. It didn't get any bids. The bank didn't have shill in the audience to bid the minimum. Would that have been okay? I don't know the law. But I do know, on this day, the bank set an unreasonable price and the laws of supply and demand, rejected it. There was no artificial inflationary bids to unrealistically price the home at a higher value even if it didn't sell. I like that model for the auction business.